The True Meaning of Christmas, Part I

By Thursday, December 11, 2014 4 9

Similar to Easter, Christmas causes me much confusion. It seems to be a mishmash of several unrelated traditions all jammed into one that mostly revolves around buying junk, eating chocolate, and lying to children. I’ve always wondered how Jesus, Santa Claus, and yule logs have anything to do with each other, so I did a little research. I found so much interesting information that this will be a two part series.

I started by writing a list of questions I have about Christmas, which was hilarious since it became quite clear I don’t understand this holiday AT ALL. Who is Santa Claus and why does he have so many aliases (St. Nick, Kris Kringle, Father Christmas, Sinterklaas)? What does he have to do with Jesus? Is Santa immortal? Is it wrong that there is a globally sanctified lie we tell children? When did flying reindeer and elfin sweatshops come into play? Why is Santa the only person (besides pimps) who says “ho ho ho”?  What is a “yule”?????

I should disclose that I am no Scrooge. My husband laughs at the magnitude of my Christmas joy. I am listening to Christmas carols as I write this. My ringtone is “Carol of Bells” every December. I honestly think the phrase: “It’s the BEST time of the year!” with embarrassing enthusiasm. Christmas to me is magical, intimate, and feels sacred and heavy with emotion. It reminds me of the quiet found only in winter that seems ancient and aware. This time of year makes me ache for the line of humanity that made me, for the light that is bigger than me. I. Love. Christmas. A lot.

Yet our traditions make no sense to me.

From my research, I learned that my confusion was warranted. Christmas is essentially the merging of at least three separate celebrations with very different meanings:

  1. Yuletide/Winter Solstice
  2. Jesus’ birth
  3. Santa Claus

When you look at the celebrations, they don’t make sense combined together. At first. But when you look deeper, they have the same basic root: a celebration of life and light.

The Yule. The What? The Yule Y’all.

Let’s begin with the yuletide. This is a pagan festival originating in Germany and Scandinavia celebrating midwinter and winter solstice. Heathens celebrated this, you guys, heathens! The yuletide honored the sun and the lengthening of days that starts on winter solstice. It was a celebration of birth and the end of darkness.

The yuletide was celebrated between November and January, centering around the winter solstice on December 21. There was lots of ale drinking, sacrificing of animals, smearing of blood on walls/people, and supernatural activity. There was also a focus on, uh how do I say this, female fertility, so…

During the yuletide, people brought evergreen trees indoors and hung evergreen boughs to remind them of the life that would grow when winter ended — the origin of our Christmas trees and wreaths.

Candles, fires, and yule logs were lit to push back the winter darkness — the origin of our Christmas lights and, obviously, yule logs. This celebration is where we get mistletoe, caroling, and eating ham.

The Norse god Odin was honored, who Margaret Baker, described as: “the old blue-hooded, cloaked, white-bearded Giftbringer of the north, who rode the midwinter sky on his eight-footed steed Sleipnir, visiting his people with gifts.” Remind you of anyone else?

The yuletide/winter solstice was hugely important across many cultures long before little baby Jesus. Grocery stores and radiant floor heating didn’t exist. Fireplaces weren’t just fun, crackle ‘n pop, winter accessories — winters were hard. The return of the sun was a significant moment and revered globally by our non-equatorial ancestors for survival reasons.

Then Add In A Little Baby Jesus

I was surprised to learn that (1) Christians didn’t always celebrate Christmas, and (2) there is no mention of December 25th anywhere in the Bible. No one knows the date of Jesus’ birth and some religious historians believe there is evidence for Him being born at other times of the year.

In the 3rd century, Pope Julius I chose December 25th as Jesus’ birthday, most likely because pagan and winter solstice festivals were already celebrated at that time. By choosing the same time, church officials made it easier for people to embrace Christmas. They also assimilated many pagan traditions into Christmas to ease the transition. For instance, they adopted the pagan tradition of evergreen trees but added a new Christian twist: they put apples in the trees to symbolize the Garden of Eden, and these apples became the ornaments we use today.

Christmas was not always as solemn, biblical, and family-oriented as it is today. For a long time it was wildly pagan; it was still the yuletide and it was more like a drunken Mardi Gras celebrated in public, not privately as families.

There were so many pagan roots in Christmas traditions that it was opposed by many Christians (and still opposed by some today). The Puritans in colonial New England banned Christmas and in 1644 the Massachusetts legislature fined anyone who celebrated Christmas 5 shillings (I tried to convert this into today’s dollars using my iPhone app but oddly it didn’t know the valuation). The “war against Christmas” has been going on since like 1644, you guys!

Christmas, Things They Forgot to Mention, blog, photo, yule, yuletide, tree, ornament

To Be Continued in Part II…

I’ll end the post here and save the rest for Part II where we’ll discuss when Santa came into the picture, how Coca-Cola contributed to who he is, when the pagans finally lost, and how Christmas turned into a massive assembly line of gifts and harmless, little lies for our children.

(Sources: I spent way too much time on the History Channel website and multitudes of religious websites for this information.  If you want backing, ask and ye shall receive.)

Things They Forgot to Mention:

Christmas is our creation. A wonderful creation of ancient traditions all mashed into one weird but beautiful celebration of life and light and the stuff bigger than us. Also heathen stuff, LOTS of heathen stuff.

Click here for Part II

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4 Comments
  • Luna
    December 12, 2019

    Love this post. I am also an unabashedly lover of Christmas. Cheers to you and your dear blog. And blessings on your family.

    • Sunna
      December 13, 2019

      Thank you, Luna! Cheers to you during this most wonderful time of year 🙂

  • Caron Garliepp
    December 13, 2019

    I love it, also (and just shared it on FB)! Merry Christmas to you & yours!

    • Sunna
      December 13, 2019

      Ah! Caron, I miss you. Thank you for loving it and sharing it. Merry Christmas!

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